


October 2019, London - Part II

by germanjj



Series: Buried Under Clear Glass (Finished Series) [11]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF, Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Boys In Love, I mean it, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Build, Slow Burn, very angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:20:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24184249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/germanjj/pseuds/germanjj
Summary: Sometimes love is so clear to see, visible for everyone around you, and yet you're not able to reach out and touch it, grab it, pull it towards you. It's like it's buried under clear glass.And sometimes, you find the cracks in the glass, but you're unsure whether to finally break it.
Relationships: Timothée Chalamet/Armie Hammer
Series: Buried Under Clear Glass (Finished Series) [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1657570
Comments: 26
Kudos: 74





	October 2019, London - Part II

**Author's Note:**

> thank you all for coming on this wild ride with me! This is part II of London, part III will be the last of this series.

Not an hour later, I am sitting on the sofa with the TV on, unable to find sleep even though I am, too, exhausted. The TV is showing some movie I'm not paying attention to. Still, I have it on regardless, sound so low I can barely hear it as not to disturb Timmy's sleep but enough to keep my mind busy, to have it occupied with things other than the man in my bedroom my thoughts keep swirling back to. 

When the bedroom door opens, and a sleepy Timmy wanders out, the familiar ache in my chest returns at the sight of him, sleep-tousled hair, hooded eyes, and his mouth twisted as if he's mindlessly biting at his lip, and everything I worked so hard on the last hour goes right out the window. 

"Can't sleep?" I ask when he pads over, and he just shakes his head. I watch him walk into the kitchen and come back with a glass of water that he's holding to his chest. He looks utterly exhausted, so much he's probably past the point of sleep. 

And still, he's beautiful.

He flops down beside me and looks at the TV screen as if we're just two buddies watching TV together. The silence isn't uncomfortable. In part surely because we're both past the point of, while not talking about it, we're certainly over pretending there's nothing there. 

That, what is between us. That, what doesn't go away, no matter how much we tried to ignore it, what keeps instead growing and growing with every year going by. 

We watch TV. For a few minutes, I can imagine a world where there's no weight between us, just two people, sharing space and time. A world where I would look at him and feel nothing but friendship. But even in my dream, I'm torn between wanting that or if, given a choice, I'd still not want to give up loving him the way I do. As if giving up that love would mean not loving him at all. As if there was only one way to love him, and I either could have all of it or nothing. 

I would choose all, then. Better to deal with that pain than suffering emptiness where he is part of myself now. 

The moment is over when I feel his hand on mine, and I look and see him pick my hand up as if it's an exciting new toy to play with. 

He gently takes my hand in both of his, his long delicate fingers pushing between mine, turning the hand, grazing the palm until I can feel every touch of his fingers in the whole of my body. His fingertips are circling first my wrist, then one finger after another, until finally, they circle my ring finger, naked where the last years it hadn't been, and his gaze goes up to mine, the question in them so evident as if he'd spoken aloud. 

The ring is somewhere in my toiletry bag. I haven't been wearing it for so long now that I didn't think about what Timmy would say when he saw it. 

"Liz and I have been talking about divorce for the better part of this year." 

The sentence lingers between us. 

His face goes through a range of emotions, none of them staying for too long until he reigns in his features, guarding his expression, which feels like a slap in my face whenever he does it around me. 

"What does that mean?" he asks.

_'What does that mean for us?'_ is what I hear. 

"I don't know," I say, turning my hand in his, so I'm holding it, squeezing it lightly. I turn away and let my head fall back against the couch, staring at the ceiling. "I'm afraid that we'll find out that me being married was not the thing stopping us from being together," I whisper.

It's the closest we've ever come to talking about it. My heart is thrumming in my chest with fear. 

Timmy stays silent for a long time.

I finally turn back to him, catch his gaze that is fixed on my face, so much pain in his eyes that it breaks my heart, but I can't think of anything to do or say to change that. 

"That's why you stopped us earlier?" he asks, and I watch the realization hit him, watch it processing over his face. That it wasn't the thought of my wife that had stopped us. That I was way beyond that. That I had mapped out a future for us together and had found another obstacle that was far bigger and far worse.

"I'm scared out of my mind I'll ruin you. That I'll ruin everything you worked so hard for. I don't give a shit what people say about me, but I couldn't stand if they did that to you."

There. I said it. Said every thought that had stopped me for so long from even exploring the idea of being with him in my head. 

His face doesn't change. His eyes shimmer, and his eyelids flutter as if he's fighting tears. 

He knows I'm right. He knows what they will say about him, about me, about the two of us. I can see the fear in his eyes even now, can witness how he sees inside his head all the roles he desperately wants being taken from him, all the horrible headlines, all the paparazzi chasing after him. 

The thought makes me sick that this is still how he's choosing his life. By unfair consequences. And I know, surely more so than he does, that he would be able to change it, that he would be able to rise above all of it. But he is not ready. Like with my children sometimes, I look at him and wish that I could hide him from the world, from the cruelty of it, from the painful choices we all have to make, for just a bit longer. But I can't protect him, can only stay by his side and be there whenever he needs me. Being with him might not fit into my part in his life.

"You know-," his voice trembles when he speaks, the hand not clutching mine rubbing over his adam's apple. "You know what I see when I look in the mirror?" He smiles weakly. "I see a man in a cage." He pauses and I see his jaw muscles working as he clenches his teeth. "And the worst part is that I'm the one who put him there. And I don't know how to get him out."


End file.
